10 Things Everybody Was Thinking During The SDCC 2015 Presale

So it’s that time of year again. When people all over the world sit anxiously in front of their computers hoping that they will be one of the lucky ones to score the big prize. That’s right it’s San Diego Comic Con presale. What I loved about the whole process was people’s reactions on social media. Twitter and Facebook were full of witty remarks and clever memes about the sale, even from those not buying. It actually created quite a sense of camaraderie amongst fans, all experiencing the same stress/excitement/nervousness/annoyance/joy. We all wanted the same thing and a lot of opinions on the process seemed to be shared by the fans. So what better way to celebrate/commiserate the SDCC 2015 presale than to compile a list of those shared thoughts? Note to those who couldn’t buy in the presale and plan to in the general one next year, you will no doubt experience all of these things.

“I wonder if my login time to the waiting room will affect my place in the queue. Maybe I should’ve logged in an hour beforehand.” – While we are told that login time doesn’t make any difference to our chances of getting tickets, one couldn’t help but wonder if there was a golden time. Like that if we logged in at 08:22 we would definitely get tickets. Of course this is total madness as places in the queue are randomly allocated but it didn’t stop paranoia from setting in.

“At least SDCC know their audience.” – Whilst we were waiting for our chance to purchase tickets, the yellow information bar provided us with some very geek worthy puns. Highlights included wishing us luck Hunger Games style, reassuring us that everything was fine unless Ultron found us, and confirming that our wait time would not exceed the time it would take to complete a Death Star. Amongst all the chaos these jokes actually managed to keep a lot of us sane.

“I hate the colour yellow. Yellow is my least favourite colour.” – Why all the hate on yellow? Because that was the colour of the information bar. Whilst the bar did contain some jokes as mentioned above; it also reminded us that we were still in the waiting room and no closer to buying tickets. It also told us when tickets started to sell out, sinking us into further depression. Telling us to be patient only increased the anger towards it. Yes, once identified as a happy colour, yellow became a symbol for sorrow and distress.

“That blue spinning circle is the devil” – Gaining even more hatred than the yellow bar was the blue spinning circle. Yet another reminder that we had yet to be selected to purchase tickets, this was worse as we had to wait 120 seconds for it to refresh the page. 2 minutes does not sound like a lot of time but for Comic Con fans it is an eternity. This one attracted a lot of comments on Twitter, my personal favourite: labelling it as the ‘wheel of despair’.

“If my computer/internet stops working I will cry” – Perhaps the biggest fear for every potential buyer was that some massive technical catastrophe would happen and we’d be shut out of the waiting room. I genuinely checked that my laptop charger was plugged in properly about 10 times. An even bigger worry than getting shut out of the waiting room was getting to the purchase tickets page and then our computer crashing. To get so far and then for it be taken from us would be devastating. This was a reoccurring nightmare for many.

“Wait, it’s 09:02 and the message in my yellow bar hasn’t changed. Oh no, something’s gone wrong!” – Patience is not mine or a lot of other people’s strong suit. So when it gets passed 9 and we’re still seeing the “We’re getting ready for pre sale” message or something along those lines our immediate reaction is to panic. At 09:05 when that message still hadn’t changed we were ready to throw our computers across the room and sit in a corner and cry because of course something had gone wrong and we were never going to get tickets. Probably a bit of an overdramatic response but hey SDCC is important to us. That sigh of relief when that message changed was universal.

“I promise if I get tickets, I will…. [enter bargaining chip here]” – This can be applied to any situation really. We want something and as we lose hope of getting it we start to make deals in our head. If I get this, I’ll be nicer to everyone. Or I’ll go the gym more. Or I’ll work harder at my job. You get the picture. My personal one was that’d I’d go study for 4 hours. Of course it’s crazy, no one can hear us and it’s really going to make no difference to our place in the queue but it didn’t stop us from trying.

“It’s nice to know that other people are going through this, at least I’ve made some friends. Oh, they’ve just got tickets. I hate them.” – This might be a little extreme but you get the picture. Many people bonded over the wait for tickets. We were united in our anxiety. Social media brought us together, and we made some great connections. And then we saw those people tweet that they got tickets. At first we were overjoyed for them. Then that joy turned to jealousy. Because them getting a ticket meant one less ticket available. And that one less ticket might mean that we wouldn’t get a ticket. Sad but true.

“Oh no, I’m not going to get a ticket. I’m going to have to do this all over again.” – To be honest I, as well as others, had this feeling about 2 minutes into the sale. It didn’t matter that there were still plenty of tickets left; there was just this negative voice in my head telling me I wasn’t going to get them. Fast forward 20 minutes and that negative voice became this crushing feeling of defeat, which I’m sure a lot of people experienced. It’s the knowledge that we’re going to have to experience all the stress and anxiety a second time, when even more people will be applying. Not a good feeling at all.

“It’ over, thank goodness! I need a drink/slice of cake/etc.” – This was probably the feeling of everybody irrespective of whether they got tickets or not. For those that got tickets there was that great relief that they had achieved their goal and they would not have to go through this in general sale again. For those that didn’t, despite being sad, they were probably just glad that they were free from the anxiety for a brief time. And I feel like after the stress of presale everybody thought (and rightly so) that they deserved a reward.